Awww, yeah. It’s finally here! Right in time for Halloween, one of TV’s best vampire series ever is sinking its fangs into the shelves with Angel: The Complete Collector’s Set. It’s like a David Boreanaz bender! And just like I promised, here’s some supernifty insight from series creator, executive producer and master of the Whedonverse, Joss Whedon, about our favorite soulful bloodsucker. (Yeah, I have the coolest job in the world. I know.)

Thanks so much for taking the time to talk. I know you have a lot going on.Hey, it’s my pleasure.

So Angel the Complete Series…this is a big deal!It is for me, just because I actually use my complete Buffy series all the time. [Laughs]

Yeah, right? I think a lot of people do! Is there anything new included with this collection that’s not in the individual-season sets?Um, well there isn’t anything that I got to do with this set that I didn’t get to do with the series itself, because this is the series itself.

No extras or anything?Nah. You know, when they did the Buffy set, they did this sort of round-table discussion… but they didn’t do that with the Angel set. I think they didn’t really come to it 'til so far down the line that everybody had scattered. They’d disappeared into Bones. [Laughs] So it really is just the series, but because so many people are just discovering Buffy now on DVD, this is a great thing to have. And the series gets so entwined in itself that it’s really nice to have it all in one place.

That’s a shame. I so enjoy useless deleted scenes.[Laughs] I know we live in the age of extras, and there are extras that come with it, but there’s no spectacular skydiving sequences that weren’t there before.

Or musical episodes?There could never be a musical episode of Angel. [Laughs] David is very large and I did not want him to beat on me.

I imagine this was a great excuse to watch your handiwork all over again.Embarrassingly enough, I do anyway. Not all the time, but every now and then I go through phases. I’ll watch an episode and go, "Is this the cheesiest thing in the world, that I’m watching my own stuff?" There’s just stuff in here that I adore and honestly, a lot of it isn’t my stuff. A lot of it is Tim Minear’s or somebody else’s, so it can still sort of surprise me in a way that Buffy can’t, because I was overseeing Buffy much more strictly. It’s the show that I love because it kept evolving for five years.

It really did grow into something much deeper than just a spin-off.You know, the idea was that it would be more than a spin-off. That’s why we didn’t do a spin-off until we had an idea that we thought was worth doing. But it took us a while to figure the best way to service that. We really did think it would be this stand-alone show, unlike Buffy. Then it evolved into the opposite of a stand-alone and became a mythological show. Which is very big now, but back then it was problematic… by the fifth year, they said "make it episodic again"! But by then we had enough characters that everything could come from them. And we had a great ensemble. The people we surrounded David with are the best actors and the best friends that I have.

Do you have a favorite episode or season?The seasons are all fascinating to me. I did love Season 3 — I got to do my ballet episode. Season 4 is like one long episode, it’s like 24. It’s ridiculous how [serialized] the whole thing was, because we really weren’t doing that on purpose. It just kept happening. And then Season 5, of course, you know, they lowered the budget, we got Spike… all of those new elements caused it to be really fresh. I think for episodes, I do come back to "Darla," which is sort of the sequel to "Fool for Love" from Buffy. It has some of the best dialogue I have ever heard and some of the most perfectly twisted vampire logic.

Dru, Darla, Spike. They were hysterical in their thinking.Well, there was always something behind it. It was never for an easy laugh… not that we were above a cheap laugh. But it was always an in-character cheap laugh. We always had tremendous fun with the logic of people who were dedicated to evil.

And those types of people are hard to find.Yeah! The thing is, if you’re not living, you just have a different perspective [Laughs]

Are you still working on the comic-book follow-up, Angel: After the Fall?The comic book is coming out based on some guidelines I gave them. Again, I’m not overseeing it the way I did the Buffy [comics], but yeah, there is a comic book coming out that I did sanction as sort of a "well, here’s what we would have done and here’s what you can do if you’re a comic book."

So what would you have done if you had another season? Or even just another episode?Plummeted L.A. straight into Hell!

It’s not there already?[Laughs] I knew that would be your response, but I like L.A. I’ve been an L.A. apologist for a long time. But yeah, the idea was that we were going to completely change everything without building a new set. We were just going to trash the one we had and make it postapocalyptic. So Brian Lynch, the writer of the comic, is taking that and putting it on serious steroids.

The apocalypse was really going to go down?Oh yeah!

And who was coming out of that alleyway alive after the finale?That I won’t say. But you can read the comic book.

Do you go to Comic-Con?Every year.

Did you ever think, as a 10-year-old kid, that you would grow up to be someone who was so sought-out? That people would want your autograph?Is there any 10-year-old who hasn’t? [Laughs]

That’s true. But your fans are so rabid.Well, they’ve had their shots now. [Laughs] No, you always hope that, if you want to be an artist, that you’re going to touch people and they’re going to love you for it and it will be all sunshine and roses. But yeah, it has been different than I expected. A lot of that has to do with timing… the timing of having DVDs and the Internet and the idea of the writer actually entering the public consciousness. I fell into that at just the right time. The way I fell into an emerging network at the right time and then left just as they were going down. I’ve been lucky that way.

Yet you keep it pretty real.The key is to not get all up in yourself. That’s why I stopped doing interviews for a while. I didn’t have anything new to say and I didn’t want to be the guy who has to hear his own voice. If I don’t have anything to say… you know, it can be a trap, let’s just put it that way. And you can go onto the Internet and read three people discussing you endlessly and think "Oh my god, I have the biggest fan base in the world!" [Laughs] And then your movie opens and you find out what’s really going on. [Laughs]

Speaking of movies, how is Goners going?Um, it’s going. It’s not going as quickly as I hoped, but then again, it’s movies and that’s part of how they’re different from TV. The script has been done. And I have rewritten it…and have rewritten it again. It’s the kind of the world we live in.

The nature of the beast.Yes. And I think the operative word there is "beast"!

So there’s no casting in line yet?Not really. I mean we’ve discussed it, but until the studio signs off on a script, that’s pretty much it.

Any chance there would be a role for Sarah Michelle Gellar in it?Um [pause] I don’t know. Huh. I don’t think so. And that’s not exactly how it works. Obviously Sarah is a star… but I don’t know if it’s the sort of thing she would do or not — again, we haven’t gotten that far in the process. But you know, she sort of backed off from Buffy because she wanted to make her bones as other characters. Not that she wasn’t proud of what she’d done, and she should be, but you know, you want to sort of make your own way. So it would probably be the wrong idea. Although I love what Sarah can do. I think she has an amazing talent and we worked really well together for a lot of years, I have the same sort of thing: I want to prove that I can do this on my own and not make everything I do just a chance to have a reunion with my friends. That’s not to say I won’t have a reunion with my friends from time to time — I hope to. But the key is to keep an eye on the past, but at the same time, explore new territories.

Ironically, the new territories you explored are now all over the TV landscape. So many shows bear the Whedon stamp. Supernatural, Reaper...I actually have a stamp, by the way.

You just walk around Hollywood slapping it on scripts?Yeah. [Laughs]

Do you even watch these shows that would never have made it to air if it hadn’t been for your stuff?I missed Reaper, which I wanted to see because everyone said it was cool. So now I have to go find a tape of it. I try to watch the new stuff… I watched Bionic Woman and I loved the Buffy-Faith fight at the end of the premiere.

Right?!I think they even used the same roof. [Laughs] I’m being catty and silly, of course. That show is totally its own and it's much more Battlestar than Buffy, but yeah, you look for traces. There are times that people compare things to Buffy and you go, "Yeah, but… what’s the point?" Then there are times when they compare things to Buffy, like Veronica Mars, and you’re really proud to even be mentioned because their work was so tight. The only real downside to the Buffyverse is the extreme overuse of the term "The Chosen One," which I would love to never hear again. [Laughs] It has shown up everywhere. I think there’s going to be one on My Name Is Earl.

How fitting. You created a monster!I appreciate that people are doing these shows because they’re fun, they’re what I love. But it’s more the way female characters are treated in the shows, in the way they can headline or take charge in a show that’s not necessarily a drama. That they’re taken a little bit more seriously in genre terms than they used to be. I don’t in any way take all the credit for that, but I like to think I was part of it. Every woman doesn’t have to be the damsel in distress. That’s more important to me than if it’s high school or has a supernatural element.

But you have to admit that you’re the best thing to happen to TV demons since Trilogy of Terror.[Laughs] Dude, Trilogy of Terror rocked!

Seriously, though. Even Ghost Whisperer is going there. It’s going to turn out that the town is over some sort of Hellmouth.Yeah, but it’ll be more of a Hellnostril to keep things fresh. Seriously, everything that I have done, someone did before me. It’s really how you mix it to make it your own and how much you look after it once it’s moving. How much you care about every episode. It’s not like I invented the wheel, I was just on it while it was turning.

Whedon's "Dollhouse" will be unveiled today as part of Fox's lineup ata presentation in Manhattan. The drama is about an illegal house of menand women whose memories and personalities have been wiped out so thatthey can be hired to be anyone and do anything. It stars Eliza Dushku (Faith from "Buffy"), who unintentionally served as the inspiration. It will air in midseason.

Describing their initial meetings with Whedon, Fox President ofEntertainment Kevin Reilly and Gary Newman, chairman of 20th CenturyFox Television, used terms not often heard from powerful executivesregarding pitches.

"He had me at 'hello,' " Reilly said, admitting that the first timeWhedon visited the network, "I was kinda drunk with the surprise of itall. He laid out the whole concept, but I think it was one of thosethings where I heard every other word of it."

"I don't quite know what to liken it to," Newman said. "He pitchesas if he's thinking of it for the first time. There's an extemporaneousnature to it, which keeps you kind of riveted. You have to listenreally carefully because the wicked and clever asides are nonstop."

Listen for yourself:

Is it true that this idea came to you over lunch with Eliza Dushku?

Eliza had made the deal at Fox and we got together to talk about herambition, her management, her opportunities, because I've always feltthat she's a huge star. Plus, she's a friend.

But I was trying to get a movie off the ground, "Goners." "WonderWoman" had already crashed and burned. "Goners" they had already lostcontrol of the instruments, but who knows? So things were not thatauspicious, but I was working it. Not shunning television but notintending to come back. But as we discussed Eliza's predicament, Istarted giving her some ideas about what I thought she would need: agenre show so she could be political without being partisan; anensemble show so she didn't have to be in every scene. And I thoughtabout it for a bit and then literally went, oh, curse word, I just cameup with the show and the title. And it was the title that I knew I wasdoomed. Because if you have the title, you know it's right. And that'sjust bad.

When we really discussed the whole thing, she said, "You're talkingabout my life. In my life, everybody tells me who they want me to bewhile I try and figure out who I am." And that spoke to me. I agreedthat I'll write and maybe oversee the pilot. So I went home and said,"Honey, I'm sorry, I accidentally agreed to a Fox show at lunch."

That was some lunch. What did you eat?

The Gouda pizza with shrimp at the Ivy [at] the Shore. Eliza stilllooks around the set and goes, "That's all the Gouda pizza." Back then,I was all hopeful about it. Now I'm exhausted about it. That pizza'sruined my life.

Recently you had decided to become more of an independent filmmaker. Why?

I was lucky for a while. I got a lot of breaks, including the briefexistence of the WB and UPN. So I got to do things my way, which is arare privilege in television. Then I had ["Firefly"], and, for thefirst time, I was not under the radar anymore, which meant they wouldgive me everything I wanted. Except a full order. So it was aheartbreaking experience, and the only way to resurrect the show was tomake a movie ["Serenity"] out of it.

People loved it but not so many people that they asked me to makeanother. I had scripts and offers, and three years later I seemed to berunning in place. It was harder for me to write, and partially becauseI was adjusting to having a family. But it was also the movie-makingprocess. In movies, they really will question everything. Sometimesthat makes it better and sometimes that makes it die in developmenthell or filled with notes. And notes that you can practically seefloating around the screen.

How long after your lunch with Eliza did Fox offer you the opportunity to make a guaranteed seven episodes?

One week. This just felt right. Fox understood the show, and they'vecontinued to prove that that is the case. I've pitched shows to peoplewho didn't and they made them anyway, and that didn't go so well.

Then I went into a state of blank panic. Oh, wait, all of my writershave jobs. So I went upstairs and I laid out seven notebooks, and everynight I'd go up and put my seven notebooks all in a row, and I'd lookand see what do we need to get from here to here. I even had to takethem to New York. I thought, oh, I'd just rip off the page. 'No, youcan't rip off the page. You'd kill the magic.' So I brought them toKevin Reilly and I laid them out on his coffee table, and he said,"This is great. I love all of them." I said, "Great. Now if you'llexcuse me, I'm on strike." And for the entire strike, I did not thinkabout "Dollhouse." Occasionally, I would get a feeling.

How could you stop yourself from thinking?

I had a lot of other things on my mind. Like the strike.

And the Internet musical you've been doing?

Eventually. At first I was just really working the problem because thestrike was a very serious issue and one that I don't feel we resolvedadequately. I reached out to the people in Silicon Valley, likeeveryone else, and said, if you will finance something, I will put ittogether. I will shoot it tomorrow. I will make something so low-budgetthat will look so good. That deal still isn't made. It took so long.But I wanted to get out there and create jobs and tell stories, andreally explaining to people that there really is another way. Well, Ifound out that wasn't it. And that ate up a lot of my time. So Ithought maybe something smaller. "Dr. Horrible’sSing-Along Blog" was something I'd thought of before to do as an audiopodcast so I could write some songs. I thought it would make a nicelittle piece -- three 10-minute segments. Maybe find a way to monetizeit. And I got my brothers involved. So we all wrote it together, thefour of us, and then Neil Patrick Harris, who is a buddy, agreed tostar in it. And that was our dream because he's got the greatestsinging voice and he's a brilliant actor. And Nathan Fillion agreed tostar in it as the villain. And Felicia Day agreed to star in it. Andwhen we came back, Fox said instead of 3 1/2 months to write a scriptand a few months of prep time, we're shooting ["Dollhouse"] in twomonths. And we hadn't even fully broken an episode.

And I had "Dr. Horrible" to shoot two weeks from then and no lineproducer for that. It was a time of work. The thing is, I wasn't goingto abandon or short-shrift either project. You just can't. You can'tput something out there with your name on it that isn't the mostwonderful you can make it. I also had the comic books that I shouldhave written during the strike, but I didn't. Apart from being sick, Ireally have no excuse, and they all hate me now. And they should.

When will "Dr. Horrible" launch?

We're dropping in the last effects and color-timing it right afterupfronts, and then I'll be talking to people about how we can put itout. I would like to monetize it so I can not only say, 'Look, I cantell stories,' but people can be paid.

How are you balancing being a writer, producer and director?

After the first day, we were in this tiny cramped apartment, which Ihad scouted. The actors would do three lines and we'd have to move thecamera. It was a nightmare. I was like, I forgot how to do this. Youget a big apartment and you make it look tiny. I'm away from my family.This footage is terrible. It's over. Bury me. People who know me knowthat's probably not the first time I've said that. But it always feelslike the first time. And I really thought, I've blown it. What am Idoing? Where are my children? What's going on? I'm dizzy.

Directing is my way of creating the style, of relating to the actorsand dialing in what their characters are. For me to be doing that as anexecutive producer over another director's shoulder isn't fair to them.And I happen to be one of my favorite directors. I'm not the best, butI'm just easy to get along with. I agree with almost everything I say.I won't do it the whole season. I have to be home and I have to get thescripts out on time. It's going to be a new skill that I'm learning.

Do you feel more pressure because it's a big network?

No. I feel the same pressure I always feel, which is all the pressurein the world. My name is on it. It's a story. My name now meanssomething to people that it didn't before. But I still tried my hardestwhen it didn't.

I'm sure when you became a writer you didn't think viewers would be this familiar with your name. Do you like it?

There are not two parts to that answer. I like it. I'm sorry. I'm superficial.

Do you ever sense that nowadays fans feel like they really know you because they have more access?

If somebody comes up to me, it's because they're moved by something I'mmoved by. I've never taken a job I didn't love. And, yes, I amincluding "Waterworld." I didn't love it at the end, but what a goodidea. So when somebody's coming up to me, or they're writing, they'rein the same space I am in. I write for fanboy moments. I write to givemyself strength. I write to be the characters that I am not. I write toexplore all the things I'm afraid of. I write to do all the things theviewers want too. So the intensity of the fan response is enormouslygratifying. It means I hit a nerve. "Dollhouse" might not. "Dollhouse"might make them go, "What else is on?"

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Shiryû♠ El Ángel de la Guarda ♠

Age : 32Nombre de messages : 23977Date d'inscription : 29/08/2007

Sujet: Re: Joss Whedon Ven 23 Mai 2008, 19:18

Citation :

Joss Whedon - "Dollhouse" Tv Series - Scifi.com InterviewDollhouse

Fewer Breaks Affect Dollhouse

Writer-producer Joss Whedontold SCIFI Wire that he hadn’t yet considered how his upcoming Fox SFseries Dollhouse will be affected by the network’s decision to airepisodes with far fewer commercials and in-house promos than most shows.

Dollhouse and J.J. Abrams’ in-the-works Fringe are bothpart of Fox’s Remote-Free TV experiment, which is designed to deterviewers from reaching for the remote control.

One unforeseen consequence :Producers will need to deliver extra minutes in each episode for itsinitial broadcast, then cut those minutes for the episode’s reruns,which will presumably carry more commercial interruptions.

"That’s a good point," Whedon said when asked about it in New York last week at Fox’s upfrontpresentation to advertisers. "They didn’t bring up the repeats. But wehave always had to cut out a couple of minutes for repeats. That’salways been the way. I don’t really deal with that that much. Butthey’ve also said, ’We want longer versions for the DVD.’ So,ultimately, I tend to shoot long. Our shows tend to go long. Some comein short. It will happen. But generally they go long. So this justmeans a little less heartache in the editing room."

Dollhouse stars Eliza Dushku(Buffy the Vampire Slayer) as Echo, a member of an underground, illegalgroup of people who’ve had their personalities wiped clean, enablingthem to be imprinted with any number of new personalities to carry outengagements at the behest of their handlers. Problems arise when Echoretains her memories and starts to question who she really is.

"When we cut a show down to 40 minutes, we’ve got toget the best 40 minutes," Whedon said of the editing. "We’re not goingto be like The Office and shoot way too much, but, yeah, we’re going tohave a production issue about shooting just a little bit more, becauseeven if I love it at 46 minutes, there’s a chance it could be tighter.And I never want to vamp. They’re not going to get a bloated first cut.They’re going to get a 46-minute story."

Dushku is more than just the show’s leading lady ; she’s also one of its producers. And, according to Whedon, that’s no vanity title.

"That was part of her deal," Whedon said. "When we satdown to lunch—and I had no intention of creating a show for her—shesaid, ’I have this deal. I’m a producer.’ And that’s because Elizawants to protect herself. She wants to start shaping her career. LikeEcho trying to find out who she is, Eliza has been [too]. I have seenher doing this. We’ve had a lot of these lunches over the years, [inwhich she talked about] trying to take control, and gradually, over theyears, [she’s done it]. It’s very hard for an ingénue to do that."

Whedon added : "I said, ’Oh, wow, I’ve come up with ashow, and I’ll do it with you, but you have to know, though, this thingabout you having a producer credit : I’m going to make you earn it. I’mgoing to want your input. I’m going to want ideas. I’m going to wantyou to help me work out certain problems. This is our show.’ She and Icame at it from a very similar aesthetic view, a very similar politicalview and a great mutual trust. So, to me, it’s an essential part ofwhat the show says about people and about her, that she should be aproducer."

Dollhouse will premiere in January 2009.

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Shiryû♠ El Ángel de la Guarda ♠

Age : 32Nombre de messages : 23977Date d'inscription : 29/08/2007

Sujet: Re: Joss Whedon Lun 02 Juin 2008, 11:57

Whedon, creator/producer of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Firefly, will return to series television with the show Dollhouse. However, Fox won't debut the show until early next year. Dollhouse reunites Whedon with Eliza Dushku, who kicked butt and cracked heads as Faith on both Buffy and Angel.

She stars in Dollhouseas Echo, an "Active" who lives in a top-secret, for-profit, majorlyillegal facility called the Dollhouse, where the Actives are assignedall manner of missions, and with each mission they're reprogrammed,with earlier memories wiped out and replaced by the informationnecessary to carry out the latest job. So, for example, Echo might besomeone's dream date on one mission and an assassin the next. Crisesarise, though, when Echo begins to retain memories from pastassignments and to question who she really is.

Co-stars on theseries will include Olivia Williams, Fran Kranz, Enver Gjokaj, DichenLachman, Harry Lennix and two genre favorites: Angel veteran Amy Acker and Tahmoh Penikett of Battlestar Galactica. SCI FI Weekly recently caught up with Whedon in New York City, and he excitedly offered a preview of things to come on Dollhouse.

How ready were you to jump into another TV show?

Whedon:I guess I was totally ready. I just had no idea it was going to happen.It literally did happen after lunch with Eliza, which is a tale thatsounds like a bad biopic but is actually true. I went home and said tomy wife, "Honey, I accidentally created a Fox show." And she just said,"Fine." She knew it was right, that this was very organic, and thetiming was right. I'd been aware a while. I'd mourned for my last show [Firefly].I'd been working in movies and then not working in movies for a while.And then it's just all flowed so naturally that even though I didn'tknow I was ready, I was clearly ready.

What will we see on a weekly basis?

Whedon:On a weekly basis we will see Eliza as a different person. On a weeklybasis she'll have a different engagement every week, and she'll have adifferent purpose and a different personality. The exciting thing andpart of the other reason I created the show is that Eliza is veryversatile, and this will be a chance for her to play 100 differentpeople. They'll all be her. She's not going to wear old-person makeupor anything like that, but they'll all be from very different socialstrata, with very different agendas and very different motivations andvery different things. Every week she'll have an agenda that's evil ordecent or sexual or romantic or altruistic. It can be anything. Butthere will be a flow-through of the show as well, about her and thecharacters surrounding her and how the Dollhouse works, how it doesn'twork, and her burgeoning self-awareness. Between these engagementsshe's this complete innocent and starts to go, "Hey, here I am in theGarden of Eden. What's this apple, and what do I do with it?"

Will any of the Buffy/Angel/Firefly team be coming back as writers, producers and directors?

Whedon: Oh yes, absolutely. Liz Craft and Sarah Fain are my co-execs, and I targeted them before Women's Murder Clubwent up, and then it went up and I couldn't get them. When the strikewas over, we'd picketed together the whole strike. And then the nextday they were off Women's Murder Club and I, like a vulture,like a panther, picked them out. So they're my co-execs and running theshow with me. And then I have Tim Minear and Steve DeKnight asconsulting producers, which is an embarrassment of riches. And theneverybody else we hired is sort of a younger writer, baby writers, andthey're all really smart. It's a great a room, a great room.

Who is Amy Acker going to play?

Whedon:Amy plays Dr. Claire Saunders. She works in the Dollhouse and she's avery moral force. She's very, very, very broken. She's scarred,literally scarred. Something happened at the Dollhouse a while back,and she was scarred. She just sort of lives there, and her wholemission in life is to take care of them. Topher, the programmer, who isgoing to be cute and funny and sexy, he programs them, and he has avery amoral kind of point of view, and she is sort of his counterpoint.

Who is Echo actually working for?

Whedon:The idea was, "Eliza can do a lot of things, so let's have her do a lotof things." The way that works is to have a very varied clientele.Obviously, since it's an underground operation and very expensive andvery illegal, some of them are shifty and a lot of them are rich. Thatsort helps keep it varied and fun and glamorous, but I also establishin the pilot that they do what they refer to as "pro bonos," which arejust things where they help people [for free], because they discoverthat even though they don't remember any of it, it helps themphysically that they do these things.

So there's a physical benefit to them doing good?

Whedon: Yes, and there's an argument about it. There's an argument about everything, even in the first episode.

People will compare this show to loads of other things ...

Whedon:People would come to me with "It's just like ... It's just like ...It's just like ..." I always feel a little guilty, if you have enoughof those, I feel that's what makes it original. Eternal Sunshine is one of those things we all went, "Oh yeah, of course." Eternal Sunshine. Never Let Me Go,that novel. Actually, it was Tahmoh who pointed that out to me. TahmohPenikett, when I first got on the phone with him, he said, "Have youread this book ...?" And I went, "Oh my God, I have." And, yes, I thinkI'm stealing from it.

You're going to get a lot of Eternal Sunshine comparisons ...

Whedon:Eternal Sunshine,it's that same sort of idea of "What about our relationships is real,and what is just what we're projecting?" And that's really ... thiswhole [thing] revolves around the idea of what we expect from eachother, what we believe about ourselves, and how all of that can be tornapart, and how you can build, from scratch, your own identity. So it'svery dark and very morally gray.

Would you say that Dollhouse is darker than your other shows?

Whedon:Dark in a different way, I'd say. It's gray, dark gray. It doesn't alltake place at night, I'm very happy to say, because that's horrible toshoot. But everybody in it is compromised, to a very large extent, andyet I love every character and I'm fascinated by them, as alwayshappens. And the actors we have playing them are phenomenal. So we knowthat we can take any character, put them through the wringer, find thehope or lose hope, really break them down and then build them up again,which, ultimately, is sort of the whole point of all the dramas I do.

Eliza was pretty dark on Buffy and Angel, and here ...

Whedon:She's a complete innocent as Echo, but what's interesting to me is, asshe begins to build a character as Echo, one of the things that Echo isgoing to have to learn how to do is [be] evil. Part of becoming humanis layering on something that is bad. So, that to me ... somebodydescribed it as the serpent in the Garden of Eden, and I thought,"Yeah, that's her, too."

People are also wondering who the Actives are working for, where the money goes, if they're assassins ...

Whedon: People thought it's like an Aliasthing, and the two things we've had to [clarify] is that, one, she'snot toting a gun every week. That's not what it's about. It's a humandrama with some action and all the suspense because, as she becomesself-aware, the Dollhouse becomes kind of a dangerous place for her. Sothere's always that friction. But it could be a romantic comedy oneweek. Eliza jokes that this a cure for her ADHD, and I say it's a curefor mine.

During the writers' strike you shot Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog,an online musical that stars Neil Patrick Harris, Felicia Day andNathan Fillion. What can you tell us about that, and what's currentlyhappening with it?

Whedon:Dr. Horrible we'rejust finishing. We're going to finishing posting it, and then we'regoing to have a whole conversation about how to put it out there. I'mgoing to put it on the Internet first. Whether or not I can monetize itthat way ... I'd like to be able to. I'd like to be able to make themoney back, pay the crew, because Dr. Horrible, apart frombeing hilarious and fun, is also a product of the strike. I want toshow that there's a way to make things yourself, but then I also wantto show that there's a way to make that viable for people. So even if Idon't accomplish the second part, I want to do the first part. So we'llput it on the Internet, hopefully with a sponsor of some kind. We'llwork that out. And then iTunes, DVD ... we're doing amazing DVD extras.It's going to be the finest 40-minute musical since the last one I made.

_________________

Shiryû♠ El Ángel de la Guarda ♠

Age : 32Nombre de messages : 23977Date d'inscription : 29/08/2007

Sujet: Re: Joss Whedon Mar 15 Juil 2008, 02:45

Citation :

This is Chris Bridges with the Daytona Beach News-Journal,and I’m talking with Joss Whedon, creator of “Buffy the VampireSlayer,” “Angel,” the show “Firefly,” the movie “Serenity,” theupcoming FOX show “Dollhouse,” and now an original online musicalmini-series, “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog.” Thank you for talking tome.Thanks for having me.Go ahead and give me the elevator pitch for “Dr. Horrible.”There’s an elevator pitch?I hope so.I’ve never heard that phrase. Basically it’s your typical Internetmusical about a super villain who’s trying to make his bones in thesuper villain community and get some respect, and maybe even work upthe nerve to talk to the girl at the Laundromat.So, like every other Internet serial musical.Yeah, you know, I mean it’s a tired genre but I thought I could wring a few bucks out of it before it dies.How did this get started? What made you decide to go straight to the Internet?You know, there’s been a lot of talk about that during the (writers)strike, I’ve been interested in doing things that were smaller, lowerbudget, more filled with my friends, and sillier than I’m allowed to doin the normal course of Hollywood, so I decided I’d just fund a littlesomething myself. It kind of ballooned, in terms of the amount oftalent that we were able to attract, but it’s been true to its tinyroots of “Let’s just put on a show.”A “my dad has a barn” sort of feeling.You know, when I was a kid, he did. And we put on shows.How did you choose the cast? Does Nathan Fillion have pictures of you, or–You know, you’re not the first person to ask that so I’m beginning to wonder. After I passed out, what happened…?You know, who wouldn’t cast Nathan Fillion in absolutely everything.I mean, he can play the hero, he can play the idiot, he can play theingénue, he can play the ficus and be the most interestingthing in the room. He’s amazing. And you know he’s a dear, smart,centered guy, so that’s a no-brainer. And he’s so great as thatcharacter, you know. It very much reflects some of his own humor thatthe moment he signed on Zack and I were writing a bunch of his scenes,we raced to our typewriters. No, we use computers, we’re not that old. But you know, Neil was… I wasn’t as sure Neil would be interested init and he said yes faster than I had the question out. But he’s, youknow. Just incre.. I’ve seen him do everything, including, you know,sing on Broadway, so I knew he had the chops. He still brought more toit than I even imagined he could. And Felicia, you know, has been afriend since she was on “Buffy.” Her show “The Guild” has been kind ofan inspiration for this and I suspected she had some singing pipes aswell and she also blew me away. The first time she and Neil sangtogether, I may have cried a little.Will there be a soundtrack?Yes there will! Although I’m not positive when.Making it up as we go along?There is no truer statement of this entire endeavor than that.Has it been more… I’m not sure “relaxing” is the right word,but has there been a different feel to it because you’re totally incontrol of everything?Yeah, you know, “relaxing” is definitely not the right word? Becausebeing in control of everything means being responsible for everything,including signing all the checks. You definitely learn, oh, this isreally complicated. I understand why it’s so hard to settle contractsof studios and things. But… And I got very nervous, before we had lineproducers on, I just thought “This is never going to happen!” But theflip side, the creative side, yeah, it is like a warm bath. It’s justthe sweetest, the most delightful, relaxing thing, just in terms of“This is just us, this is what we want to do with our time. Everybodyis having the time of their lives.” That’s something that’s hard tocapture.What time will the episodes be posted?We’re planning to post them pretty much at 12:01 in the morning. Are you ready for the entire Internet to land on you?You know, if we don’t crash it, we’ve failed. No, we only have the bandwidth to support 17 viewers at a time.No, none of those things are true, we do hope that a lot of peoplewill show up, ‘cause we think it’s kind of an event. But we’re alsoprepared for the numbers to be even smaller than anybody thought, foreveryone to go “awwww.” Because, you know, you have to be prepared forthat and the great thing about it is I don’t have anybody worryingabout it. We don’t have anybody we’re beholden to, to be like “Youfailed us! We loved the musical.” We think the people who see it willlove it as well, and how many people see it, well, that’s not really upto us.You have a knack for attracting obsessive fans. What do you think they see in your work?An obsessive fan…This is an obsessive fan asking that.Yes, I am one, too. That’s what I am, that’s what I grew up as. Thethings I love, I love very hard. And that’s the kind of… and it’susually genre stuff, which also attracts that type. You know, the worldof imagination; when people enter any world that’s not our own they’reworking in a different way than if it’s just a straight drama, nomatter how great. It could be the “West Wing,” it’s great but there’s adifferent level when you add an element of fantasy. Particularly whenyou add song. It allows people to lose themselves, and [in anexaggerated arch voice] “find themselves.”Yes, I am a new-age calendar. But I’m not wrong.Your fans are also the type to know the ins and outs of theInternet and how to grab videos before you’re ready for them to. Areyou concerned about the likelihood of piracy?They got the teaser before we were ready for it. You know, we sortof, the inevitability of some piracy is something we’re prepared for.We also know that true fans do tend to, you know, if something is, youknow, available to buy and the buying of is part of being in thecommunity because it supports the people who have created it, you know,i.e. letting us pay our crew, it’s, you know, you take the one with theother. I mean, we’re giving this thing up for free on the Internet for aweek because we want to give the fans something that they can justhave. But we want to make it an event that goes away, so that it feelsmore special.Has there been any reaction from studio execs that you still work with, about the kind of end run around the industry?All the response from everybody involved with the studios has beenpositive. Has been interest in, do you want to develop this in anotherway, do you want to partner in this kind of distribution, there’s…nobody said (in crotchety old man voice) “Say, what are you kidsdoing?” and tried to chase us off like a cop in “The Little Rascals.”So—Well, they’re also interested in seeing if it works so they can try it.Yeah, I mean, nobody’s out to… this isn’t a zero-sum equation.Everybody can win here, you know, and if it wasn’t for some of thosestudio people I would never have been able to make this. AndrewFinneday, the Universal executive who let us have the lot for a song,for a day, you know, who are the people in the industry that I dealwith, they’re people, they’re a part of the community. The guys at thevery tippy-top that I pretty much never see, they have a differentagenda but they also can see this as “Well, why don’t we let them jumpin the pool and we can find out if it’s too cold that way?”So, again nobody loses. Nobody’s cranky about this. That I know of.Maybe the Grinch, who doesn’t love Christmas at all, is up on his hillgoing, “Oh, the noise noise noise noise,” but I don’t know him.If everything came true the way you wanted it to be, what would you like to see happen because of “Dr. Horrible”?I would like to be a gagillionaire.I would like to see more of this kind of content, I would like tomake, but even if I can’t I’d like to see more people sort of steppingup between the home-made and the studio-made and putting things on theInternet that are truly strange and personal and yet accessible to asmany people as possible. I’d like the Internet to be a viable economicframework for a sort of, a world of “B” pictures. A new, strange,surreal “B” studio, the kind they don’t have anymore. That’s what I’dlike to see. And I’d like to run it.

The Hollywood Reporter: Did you expect this kind of response to "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog"?

Joss Whedon: Yes and no. I mean, you always do; you always go in swinging thinking everyone will love it -- they will love my painting of sunflowers - but it doesn't work out that way. So it's a surprise but also not a surprise. But I also felt that this (Comic-Con) was the crowd. If anybody was going to get it, it was going to be these guys.

THR: "Dr. Horrible" launched July 15 and you announced the soundtrack will be available in a few weeks. Were you prepared to put out the iTunes soundtrack so quickly?

Whedon: We made everything happen so quickly partiallybecause we wanted to get it out before Comic-Con, partially alsobecause we wanted to make it happen quickly. I tried to makeInternet deals; they took forever, they're still not made. And thiswas during the strike, this was before Christmas that I startedthese deals, thinking, "I'm going to make content."

And with these big Silicon Valley companies, they're like, "So inthe third part of the second part of the fifth clause ..." and I'mlike, "Guys, it's August."

So one of the things we said was that we're going to show this forfree in mid-July so we can rock the Con, have a really good time,but also because you just have to get it done. Everybody was notused to that and they were pretty much on board, iTunes was prettyenthusiastic, and everybody we showed it to, and they just said OKwe've never done it this fast so have your lawyers call us now (afew weeks before "Dr. Horrible" streamed).

It was a couple of weeks before we streamed it that we started tomake the deal with iTunes. We created our own paradigm from startto finish with this, including the business deal. Which was reallyfun.

THR: Is there a release date for the soundtrack? Is itiTunes only or will there be a physical release as well?

Whedon: It should just be a couple weeks. It'll be strictlydownloadable at first, and then we do hope to put out acool-looking actual release. But our main goal is to get the DVDout, definitely before November. We have a lot to do for it, wewant to make it special. That's another thing that we're in wherewe make the rules.

THR: Speaking of the DVD, can you tell me anymore about theEvil League of Evil video submission contest?

Whedon: We do have an interview with the Evil League of Evilfor the DVD, and they're evil, I gotta tell you. They're not goodpeople. Not good. We're just going to have people send in underthree-minute submissions for their pitch for why they should be inthe Evil League of Evil and we'll put the best ones on so the fanscan be a part of what's going on instead of just, "Sit back andenjoy your entertainment and shut up and buy stuff."

THR: Have any studios or distributors expressed interest in"Dr. Horrible"?

Whedon: Yes, actually, we met with a couple of differentcompanies but we showed it to studios as well as streaming people.We showed it to anybody who would watch. My agent took it aroundtown with it tucked under his arm because we couldn't send it topeople because we were worried about security and it getting out.The response there was overwhelming. People were very interested inpartnering in one way or another.

So far, we've partnered with iTunes, we have other stuff coming upbut we don't know what we're going to do for the DVD, we sort oftook our own route. There were some companies that were like, "Thisis great and we can roll it out slowly by creating awareness on theInternet and throw out some bread crumbs at Comic-Con," and we'relike, "No, we're going to stream it for free first for aweek."

THR: What was the response regarding streaming it forfree?

Whedon: The free thing kinda threw some people. Everybodyhad to kinda take a breath on that one. Because, you know, you makeless money with free things.

But there were two sides to that. One was very idealistic, one wasvery mercenary. The idealistic one was we wanted to do this event,we wanted it to be about the Internet as much as it was about "Dr.Horrible." We wanted to say there is another way, just not to thestudios, but to the people doing the Internet. It's not your catfalls off a TV set or "Ben-Hur," there is something in the middle.

THR: You've said that production budget for "Dr. Horrible"is in the low-six-figures. Is "Dr. Horrible" profitable yet?

Whedon: No. We have not made back our investment, but we arein the process; we are accruing. We have high hopes. The idealisticside was, let's throw this out there, why not. And the mercenaryside was honestly, it's honestly promotional.

The idea was to create a buzz that would exist beyond that, and theonly way to really do that was to have people see it. More peoplesaw it than we anticipated, hence the site crashage, but hopefullyit will continue. Hopefully people are still downloading it.

THR: In terms of producing content specifically for the Web,how far have you seen it come in the past couple of years?

Whedon: People are kind of dancing around it. Theredefinitely has been some interesting stuff that I've seen. Ihaven't seen as much as other peope; I'm kind of new to the field,truthfully. I feel like we've seen some cool things and someadvancements, but people have gotten stuck in a rut already.

When we were making this, people were like, "You can't haveanything over seven minutes long," and somebody else was like 'Youcan't have anything over three minutes long; attention spans willgo at two minutes and 49.7 seconds every single time no matterwhat." It's a very nascent field and everybody was very entrenchedabout the way you could create content and what people would sitfor on the Internet.

So we were like we were going to make it however long we'd like. Weshot for 10 minutes, but it's me so it came out long.

THR: Based so far on your experience with "Dr. Horrible," doyou think the Web is a good business model?

Whedon: None of us is going to become a billionaire fromdoing this but yes, I think it's very tricky and most people willtell you it can't be done. I had one person who might actually be abillionaire, and he said, "Yeah, you'll make $2,000." And he wasn'tbeing mean. ... I'm happy to say, we've topped $2,000.

The thing is, as a business model, what it isn't is a cash cow.Most of the territory has been staked out. Unless you create aYouTube or a Google or something that's all already been done, nowthe field is crowded. There was 1.0, where it's basically the openprairie, now that's all done. And there's 2.0, where the ideas aresmaller and they fit in what is now an existing structure.

And so you have to find a niche in there ,and you have to acceptthat that's what it is, especially if you're working on my level. Astudio isn't really interested in making an investment unless it'sa huge one. I can't do that.

But I do think that's the best way to find a sustainable model onthe Internet is to build something that is always exactly the sizeit needs to be. Don't throw $100 million and need it to startbringing back (returns); don't say, "Oh we'll get in the black infive years' time."

I was prepared to lose every cent that I put into this. I did thisbecause well, I got to make a musical that's first and foremost,but because we do need new business models for the creativecommunity as residuals are going to become a thing of the past.Some people are going to need to get into this and I feel the wayto get it is to always stay at the exact level you're at.

"Dr. Horrible" should turn a profit and just enough to continue atthat level. At some point it could get bigger and turn into abigger thing, or it could get smaller. You have to have thatmalleability. If your expectations are too high, if you're in it tomake a fortune, you're going to have a bad time, I think. If you'rein it to make a living, you might do OK.

THR: How will the 13 webisodes of "Dollhouse" be differentfrom the series? Will they be interstitials or stand-aloneepisodes?

Whedon: We're talking about both, about doing a few sort ofteasy pops at the beginning, we're talking about having a storyappear as sort of part of a story that's not part of a main story,that's laid out as part of an arc in the show. We're still feelingour way around that; I'm still feeling my way around the show.

I think ultimately what we'll end up with is arcs because that'sthe easiest way to do it. If every two-minute story you do is a40-minute story you can't do later, arcs is a good way to go.

THR: Any "Dollhouse" comics planned?

Whedon: I talked to ("Buffy" comics publisher) Dark Horse,and "Dollhouse" has got some adventure and suspense and thrills,but it's people talking and I know they have a "CSI" comic, but Idon't read it. (Laughs) I believe that you need a reason to be in amedium and you have to respect what that medium is for, and I justdon't see "Dollhouse" as doing that. It could be done, but I justdon't see why.

THR: As for the "Buffy" Season 8 comics, are you going to bewriting more or is your role shifting more toward oversight?

Whedon: I'm finishing the Fray arc and then a couple ofother people are stepping in and I have a plan to do one more arcbefore the end of the season. Although I'm looking at that with acold eye; maybe I should just oversee that because I'm late with anissue, and it gets harder and harder.

And sometimes juggling everything is easier just because you get inthis awesome mind space where you can just click from one thing toanother -- and that should kick in any minute - but since ithasn't, I am struggling with all the different things that I havegoing on right now, including the movie (MGM's "The Cabin in theWoods"), which I'll be producing at the same time as I'm doing"Dollhouse" and what ever I have to do with "Dr. Horrible" and"Buffy."

THR: What other comics are you working on right now?

Whedon: I finished my run at Marvel, which was really funand sometimes I have ideas for other ones, but then I tape my ownmouth shut and they go away. "Runaways" is done and it's coming outin hardcover.

THR: "Sugarshock," an online comic from Dark Horse Presentsthat was available only on MySpace, is coming to print. Do you havea release date for that? Any plans to bring the MySpace "CaptainHammer" comic to print?

Whedon: "Sugarshock" is coming Aug. 28. All the Dark HorsePresents content stays online then can go to print a year later. Wedo plan to do a couple more of those. We want to do a Moist comic,and a Fake Thomas Jefferson. We've got some ideas. (Laughs)

THR: You've touched on all the massive commitments you'vegot going on. How do you balance everything?

Whedon: The trick is extreme focus. I don't have the key.I'm a horribly disorganized and lazy, procrastinating person, sothat doesn't help me, either. The good thing about some of these isyou don't have a choice. It's gonna go up. You have a shoot date.You gotta get it done. And then sometimes, with "Dr. Horrible,"you've just gotta do it. You just have to, and not becauseanybody's saying it has to be done but just because you know inyour heart that you'd always be sad if you didn't. I love tellingstories more than anything. I wake up, I wanna play with my kidsand/or tell stories. That's it. I don't have a lot of hobbies. Idon't collect stuff, I can't fish. I don't use my muscles in anyway ...

THR: Will there be an Act 4 for "Dr. Horrible"?

Whedon: This was one piece, it would be Acts 4-6 or anotherthree-part thing if we did a sequel in a way that we did this one.Or we might do something completely different.

THR: But there will be something that follows?

Whedon: I can not say with absolute certainty that therewill be just because who knows where everybody's going to be and ifwe'll be able to put it together. Plus, this has gone over so wellI'm a little scared now. Like we won't have the excuse of, "We didit really fast" anymore. And I always need an excuse.

We definitely have talked about plans and I have some grand plansabout what we can do to continue the story, and I think we all wantto. But nobody is committed to doing it. But there's nothingdefinitive. All weekend (at Comic-Con), I've been like, "Guys, Ihave another idea for the sequel! Oh wait, we have to do anotherthing (panel)." We haven't really gotten a chance to talk about it.

The big part of this for me was bringing my brothers ("Dr.Horrible" writers Zack Whedon, Jed Whedon) and (Jed's) fiancee(Maurissa Tancharoen) to experience this. They've never been to theCon, let alone stood in front of a panel of 4,000 cheering peopleand I wanted them to experience that. It was fun to watch. So we'retaking it one step at a time.

THR: Any plans for new Internet-only ventures?

Whedon: If I didn't have other commitments, I would probablybe doing nothing else. I think it's really fascinating. There's alot of stories I want to tell in exactly that way. On the cheap,directly designed to be experienced on the computer in segments andkeep the whole thing modular. I think it would also be a good ideato do something other than "Dr. Horrible" first just to sort ofsay, "Oh by the way, there are different shapes to this," so thatit doesn't become just the one trick.

THR: Is there any other forum you'd like to explore?

Whedon: The stage. I don't have a podcast, but that'soriginally what "Dr. Horrible" was supposed to be. I've never donelive stage, but we've talked about bringing "Dr. Horrible" toBroadway (laughs). But a live stage musical is something I'vealways been curious about. And I'm still planning on someday makingthis ballet with Summer (Glau, Whedon's "Angel," "Terminator: TheSarah Connor Chronicles") that I wrote the score for.

THR: Would you consider adapting the "Buffy" musical "OnceMore, With Feeling" for the stage?

Whedon: I don't think so, because it's an episode in themiddle of seven years of history; it doesn't stand on its own.Whereas something like, say, "Dr. Horrible," you start at thebeginning. I have thought about doing a "Buffy" musical but Iwouldn't do "Once More, With Feeling." I would do a musicaladaptation of the concept starting from square one.THR: Would you use the same cast?

Whedon: I doubt it. None of them do theater in that way.Besides, they'll be 80 when I finish it.

Attention Fans: It’s officially time to cut Joss Whedon a little slackBecause as it turns out, there is an incredibly high price to payfor having a track record of culturally relevant television, millionsof passionate followers, and Summer Glau on your speed dial.That price: An almost inhumane level of self-inflicted pressure and fan expectation.Expectation that is about to reach a boiling point as theWhedonverse (yes, he has his own universe) anxiously count down thedays (14 in case you’re wondering) until the February 13th bow of hishighly anticipated new FOX series DOLLHOUSE.None of which comes as a surpise to Joss Whedon himself, who was only too happy to sit down with this TV Addict at FOX’s recent January press junket in Los Angeles to talk about surviving the Dollhouse.Talk about the pressure you’re feeling right now.Joss Whedon:There is pressure, but it’s the same pressure I always feel. It’s thesame pressure I felt in high school. If I’m writing something andsomebody is going to see it, I don’t want it to suck. I pretty muchlive in terror, constant terror of public humiliation. But it’s thatconstant fear that makes me somewhat meticulous.You’ve been in the spotlight for thebetter part of a decade now. Have the amount of behind-the-scenes newsand rumors emanating from the ‘Dollhouse’ taken you by surprise?Yeah you kind of take it with a grain of salt and always remember thatthere is only one thing worse than being talked about. So you know it’sabsolutely the price and it’s fine. But as we get closer to thepremiere, it has been getting more and more like this. Ultimately theshow is the show and if people enjoy it then we did good and if theydon’t, we did the other thing and all the speculation ends ups meaningnothing if that happens.

What are your thoughts on being paired with TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES on Friday nights.I love being paired with THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES. I love that show,so it works for me. I know I’m in the minority and a lot of peoplestill adhere to the old ways, but I haven’t watched a show when it airsin like two years. Fridays are tough. But what matters is what theNetwork is expecting and these guys made it very clear that Fridaycarried a different weight then being the opener for 24 [on Monday].I’d rather not be in that spot and I’d rather be where the pressure isoff a little bit and if the numbers are soft, well, that’s going to bethat is going to be a “Friday thing.”And just think of the crossover opportunities! Would Summer Glau not make an awesome member of the Dollhouse?She would, she would. I think it’s time for Summer to play someone whoisn’t a robot, insane or you know… but I’m very excited that our showis with her. I love her show above and beyond the fact that she’s init. Which is nice because I’ve watched a lot of crap because my friendsare in it and I just feel that Friday will be a night of televisionthat I get. The two shows really are companion pieces, sometimes somuch so that we’ll be working on an idea, watching TERMINATOR and haveto say, “Okay, we have to change that.” There have been somesimilarities!Let me just say, you look ridiculously tired. Would it be fair to say that this show has taken a lot out of you?With DOLLHOUSE, I’ve worked hard to make it an ensemble piece among thewriters and have an extraordinary staff. I haven’t been on set everysecond the way I used to, partially because I have a lot of directorsthat I know and partially because I don’t have time because we weresort of re-imagining the thing. But at the end of the day it says“Executive Producer: Me.” And if the product isn’t as good as we couldhave done, I’m going to have to live with that for the rest of my life.Those things don’t go away anymore.The thing is that ultimately if I feel that I didn’t give it my bestyou know then I’m going to feel bad about it and I should whether ornot the audience likes it or not. If the audience loves it and I feellike I could have done better, I’m going to be okay. If the audiencehates it and I feel that I put every ounce into it that I could thenI’m going to be okay. If they go. “this seems weak” and I agree withthem, I’ll probably go into a coma state… I’m a writer…. really just abig neurotic guy.

I think it was Buffy's dream, but that Faith was reaching out in it. Ifeel like there was a part of Faith that wanted to tell Buffy that.

Was Drusilla a Slayer or possibly one of the Potentials before Angelusturned her? And is there any chance Dru will be dropping by the comicsany time soon?

I think we shall be seeing Dru atsome point, for sure. And a Potential Slayer? I can't say for sure, butit's a pretty good theory.

Was Anya's fear of bunnies an inside joke relating to Alex Forrest from 'Fatal Attraction'?

No. Totally not. I just wanted to put Anya in a bunny suit and I needed tojustify it; so I had her say she was afraid of bunnies. And one of thebest things about television is that a casual remark can become yourfavourite thing on the show.

Was Britney Spears really going to star as April, Warren's robot girlfriend in Season 5?

Well, she wasn't, but they told us she might. And they said, "Britney wantsto do the show!" They always do. "Samuel L Jackson wants to do theshow!", we got that one one time too. Eventually I just stoppedbelieving it. So we did hear there was a possibility Britney wanted todo the show. We had never seen her act at all, so I said, "Well, we'llcover our bases. We'll write a show about a robot! And that way if shecan't, we're fine." And then Shonda Farr came in and did a wonderfuljob. And the creation of Warren the villain, the Buffybot; it all camefrom the fact that we thought Britney Spears was going to be on theshow. So, happy accidents.

Do you feel that Buffy Season 8 has been a success, and where would you rank it in comparison to previous seasons?

I don't really compare it to the TV show because it's such a differentanimal. I feel that it's been a success. Definitely it's been a successin terms of the comic book and sales; and what's important for me, it'sgot into the Top Ten, and been in the Top Twenty in its whole run. It'snot one of the big comic book companies, so that's exciting for thesmaller companies. A lot of people weren't reading comic books, camein, started reading it, started reading other books because of it;that's exciting for the community.

The book itself I'm really proud of, and I think some of my writers have done amazing work on it.I feel like I've had a little less success keeping it focussed on whereit needs to go. Sort of deliberately gone off on cul-de-sacs and sortof let people play with it a little bit. But in the second half nowwe're getting towards really the heart of the thing, where we're reallygoing to hit people more emotionally, and it'll start to come up to thelevel of the show in a way that it did, but only occasionally.

Speaking of the second half, will we see an actual Buffy/Angel reunion and/or a reaffirmation of their romantic feelings?

They're going to have sex for three issues straight. Nothing but porn. And that's what America needs.

Will Buffy ever know that Spike is alive?

Spike will appear in two of the three issues. I can't really describe how.

No, all of these things, you know, all of these characters we have licenceto use in the Buffyverse but because a different company has thefranchise we've been a little hands-off. But, you know, we've got somuch to play with right now that we're waiting; but we won't waitforever. Got to see our boys.

I've heard that you drafted a script for a Buffy/Angel movie. Is this true?

This is false.

Would the character of Winifred Burkle have returned to 'Angel' had the show gotten another season?

She would have returned in that Illyria would have become more and moreinterested in using her as a disguise. And we would just have to tellAmy some days she didn't have to come into make-up three hours early.So yes, we would have had more Winifred.

When can we expect a Serenity 2 movie; and if never, can you tell us what Inara's secret was?

I'm not giving up Inara's secret - although I believe Morena has atconventions. Thanks, darling. But nobody has ever approached me aboutdoing a movie, except fans. When somebody in a suit does, then I'llknow that the landscape has changed. Basically, I'm at the ready. Themoment they say "Go!" I'll start gathering the troops again; but nobodyhas.

We caught up with new Emmy winner Joss Whedon on Monday night at aparty for Fox's upcoming fall season, and he gave us the exclusivescoop on a possible Dr. Horrible sequel, the new season of Dollhouse and his upcoming horror movie Cabin in the Woods.

Over the summer, SCI FI Wire reported that Kevin Reilly, presidentof entertainment for the Fox network, said he would leave Whedon aloneafter Dollhouse's rocky first season. It turns out stand-aloneepisodes did not make the show more accessible, and once Whedon startedexploring the story, the fans clamored for more. (Possible spoilersahead!)

Inthe second-season premiere, Whedon furthers the mythology of Echo(Eliza Dushku) and the Dollhouse by showing her cycle through differentimprints over the course of an engagement. In the climax, Paul Ballard(Tahmoh Penikett) hits Echo to trigger an imprint that will give herthe fighting skills to escape a desperate situation. Later this season,Whedon regulars Alexis Denisof and Summer Glau will join the cast.

Two days after his Emmy win for Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, Whedon attended Fox's annual Fall eco-party to support Dollhouse. The following Q&A features edited excerpts of our exclusive interview with Whedon in West Hollywood, Calif. Dollhouse returns Sept. 25 and will air on Fridays at 9 p.m. ET/PT.

Congratulations on your Emmy win for Dr. Horrible.

Whedon: Thank you very much.

Does this affect anything for getting a sequel going?

Whedon: Well, I would like to think that it does, butactually we've been working on one. We've been working on writing. Thewriters, we all have jobs, I'm happy to say.

Last we talked, you were considering doing the sequel as a feature film. Does becoming "The Emmy-winning Dr. Horrible" change things?

Whedon: Well, the Emmy-winning Dr. Horrible was neveron TV. If we were on TV, maybe we would've won an Oscar. If we're intheaters, we can win a Tony. It's very confusing. We don't understand.

Is all forgiven for the "Once More With Feeling" snub [the musical episode of Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer]?

Whedon: You know, I didn't realize that was a snub. Awardsare what they are. It's extraordinary to have won it, and we're verygrateful, but it's not like we were trolling for it.

How does it feel to be left alone on Dollhouse?

Whedon: I'm afraid and I want Kevin to come back and hold me.The fact is, we definitely feel more centered about what we're doing.That doesn't mean that we're doing it completely in a vacuum. We stillget notes, and sometimes they're enormously helpful, because that'swhat a collaboration is supposed to be like. The problem with last yearwas there was a question about what the show was. That doesn't existanymore.

Now we go episode by episode, but what are we trying to accomplish?So it's still a collaboration, but in terms of "Oh, let's try and moldthis show to what we thought it was going to be," that's over. So inthat sense, yes, they have left us alone.

Did you have reservations about doing a scene where Paul really hits Echo?

Whedon: Well, I didn't really have reservations about it,because it very quickly becomes clear that he hits her in order thatshe can beat the thundering s--t out of him and everybody else in theroom. He's basically igniting a bomb, so it's shocking and sort ofawful, but then when you see why he's doing it, there is that moment,which is my favorite, as she comes at him where he just sort of goes[makes the "bring it on" gesture], "Do it, take me, give me what Ideserve."

What kind of character does Alexis Denisof play for you this time?

Whedon: Alexis is a politician who is actually sniffingaround Rossum [the corporation that runs the Dollhouse], and so he'sdefinitely more suave than Wesley was in his early incarnation. Rightnow he's an earnest guy trying to do the right thing, but he's comingup against the Dollhouse, and we know how well that went for PaulBallard.

When will we see Summer Glau?

Whedon: You will see Summer around episode five or six.She'll be working for the team. I believe that's already out there.She'll be working for the Dollhouse team.

Kicking some ass?

Whedon: She will not be terminating, nor will she have atrigger that turns her into a living weapon a la River, or Mellie.Knowing it was going to be Summer, or hoping it was going to be Summer,I wanted to do something that was different and plays to her strengths,but at the same time is a different character and kind of lovely.There'll be a little romance involved as well.